


A Greater Compliment

by thedevilchicken



Category: Genghis Khan - Miike Snow (Music Video)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, M/M, Scars, Sexual Content, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 08:34:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: The next step of their relationship requires a leap of faith.





	A Greater Compliment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etnoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/gifts).



"Trust me," Simon says. 

The look on his face says he knows what he's asking - or that he thinks he does, at least - and Nikolai knows it has to happen sooner or later. He can't avoid this forever and honestly, when he thinks about it, he doesn't really want to avoid it. He wants to know. 

He wants to know and so he unbuttons his uniform shirt and he folds it over the chair back, then he pulls off his undershirt and lays that on top. He makes it neat because that's how he does everything, then he pauses just a moment with his back to Simon; he takes a breath and he clenches his fists, unclenches them, marks his palms with his nails, and then he turns to face him. He wants to know, so he looks at Simon looking at him. 

His face isn't the only place he's scarred. He turns up his shirt collar because his neck is scarred, too, and the length of his spine down to his coccyx, one collarbone, one upper arm, one side of his chest and his torso, all the way to his hip and down under the waist of his blue uniform trousers. 

He doesn't remember it happening, but he remembers how Katya cried when she looked at him. He remembers how he couldn't bear it and she tried but that was the beginning of the end, when he came home from the hospital and he took off his shirt to go to bed and she cried, and she _cried_ , so he put it back on. She couldn't not look at him as if the way he looked now was a tragedy, and he couldn't not blame her for that. 

He knows it's as much his fault as it is hers but she said it wouldn't change things, and it did. He knows she didn't mean to, but she lied. 

Simon looks at him. Nikolai can't read his expression so he stands there, waiting, his heart thumping hard and fast. Simon has lied to him so often and for so long that he's still learning how to tell the truth instead, and Nikolai knows that. Still, they've been making small steps toward each other since Simon returned to the base beneath the island. Now, he can't help but feel these steps have led him to the edge of something, and he'll meet him there or fall.

Simon steps forward. He steps closer and Nikolai watches, and then Simon reaches out. He touches him, and Nikolai's heart is in his throat as he fights to stay still with Simon's hand at his scarred collarbone. No one has touched him except the doctors in months now, since it happened, and this isn't clinical, no nitrile gloves and treatment room lights. They're in Nikolai's bedroom in the lamplight. It seemed like the best course of action at the time. After all, when he asked him to stay, he didn't envision he'd sleep on a stainless steel bench under a laser.

"Do you trust me?" Simon asks. 

Nikolai has asked himself the same question more than once and the simple answer is he doesn't know. The game of cat and mouse they've played has lasted years and spanned several continents and he's been left so bitter and scarred and utterly resentful by it that he didn't know what else was left, but there were moments between when he saw something else. He wants to trust him, now he's come back of his own volition and not because the Service sent him, or at least that's what he says. He wants to trust him, and Nikolai thinks maybe trust can be decided as well as earned. 

"Yes," he says. He sounds sure. He thinks he is; he's made that decision. 

Simon bows his head. He presses his mouth to Nikolai's scarred collarbone and his fingers travel the length of his spine. He unbuckles the belt at Nikolai's waist then he steps back, and he begins to undress; he fumbles, and he smiles, shaking his head at himself, and Nikolai knows - or believes he knows - that Simon is just as nervous as he is. Maybe that's what he was waiting for because it's all he needs; he doesn't wait, he doesn't hesitate, he just steps quickly forward and he catches Simon by surprise when he kisses him, hard. 

"Do you trust me?" he asks, when he pulls back, flushed and thrilled and right at the verge of lightheaded, and Simon looks surprised in a way that Nikolai has never seen before. He looks elated. He looks how Nikolai felt in the bunker under the base, the day Simon didn't leave when he pushed the button and let him go.

"Yes," Simon replies. "Yes, I do." 

They undress. They undress themselves as much as they undress each other, fumbling at buttons and zips and laces, pushing and pulling almost like they're running out of time and this is the end and not just the beginning. They kiss, mouth to mouth, skin to skin as they pull at each other, hands finding shoulders, hips, and Nikolai's fucking nose is in the way so he pulls back and he _takes it off_ and there's a moment, just a moment, when Nikolai thinks maybe shouldn't have done it before Simon's mouth's on his again. He's hideous under the too-heavy pseudo-prosthetic and he has his answer: _Simon doesn't care_.

Simon pushes him down onto his back on the bed and he follows him, leans over him, looks down at him; he touches Nikolai's scarred face and he lets him do it because the look on his face says he wants to remember what he sees and not try to forget it. Then he reaches down between the two of them, catches Nikolai's cock beside his own, and strokes. 

It's more sensation than he's felt in months and he can see that Simon knows that. He doesn't try to pretend he wants it any less than he does. He doesn't try to pretend that it isn't overwhelming. He doesn't try to be steady or stoic, he just rocks his hips against Simon's hand and he holds tight at his biceps. Simon's an attractive man, tall and slim and handsome, deadly, talented, and he chose this just as much as Nikolai did but they both know he's giving up more to have it. And when they come from the gnawing pleasure and the maddening friction with hitching breath and flushed cheeks and a groan Simon doesn't try to bite back at all, there's no regret. They didn't mean for this to happen, but they're not trying to stop it. This is the first time of many.

After, Simon shifts and lounges there on his side, his head propped up on one hand. Nikolai knows enough to know the smile on his face is genuine, even if it's faint. Even if it's wistful.

"You know, I'm not going to say I'm sorry," Simon says, as he traces the scars at Nikolai's hip. 

"I didn't ask you to lie to me," Nikolai replies. "I know you were doing your job."

Simon's smile turns wry, and Nikolai presses his mouth to his to kiss that look away. Every time they kiss, it's a fraction less awkward. Every time they kiss, it makes more sense that they're not at each other's throats. Thirteen years is a long time to be enemies, even if that's just the work and nothing personal.

He doesn't remember what happened, but he's seen the recording of it; Simon tried to kill him, and then Simon saved his life. _That_ was personal.

He's decided to trust him. Even if he's wrong about it all, he'll remember how that felt.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _The Marquis of Lossie_ by George MacDonald: _To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved._


End file.
